Jane Eyre - Pennsylvania State University

This silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had
disturbed some old associations he valued. I inquired whether
this was the case: no doubt in a somewhat crest-fallen tone.
“Not at all; he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had
scrupulously respected every association: he feared, indeed, I
must have bestowed more thought on the matter than it was
worth. How many minutes, for instance, had I devoted to
studying the arrangement of this very room?—By-the-bye,
could I tell him where such a book was?”
I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took it down,
and withdrawing to his accustomed window recess, he began
to read it.
Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John was a good man;
but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he
said he was hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of
life had no attraction for him—its peaceful enjoyments no
charm. Literally, he lived only to aspire—after what was good
and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor approve
of others resting round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead,
still and pale as a white stone—at his fine lineaments fixed in
study—I comprehended all at once that he would hardly make
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a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be his
wife. I understood, as by inspiration, the nature of his love
for Miss Oliver; I agreed with him that it was but a love of
the senses. I comprehended how he should despise himself
for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he should
wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should mistrust its ever
conducting permanently to his happiness or hers. I saw he
was of the material from which nature hews her heroes—
Christian and Pagan—her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors:
a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon;
but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous column, gloomy
and out of place.
“This parlour is not his sphere,” I reflected: “the Himalayan
ridge or Caffre bush, even the plague-cursed Guinea Coast
swamp would suit him better. Well may he eschew the calm
of domestic life; it is not his element: there his faculties stagnate—they
cannot develop or appear to advantage. It is in
scenes of strife and danger—where courage is proved, and
energy exercised, and fortitude tasked—that he will speak and
move, the leader and superior. A merry child would have the
advantage of him on this hearth. He is right to choose a